As a 56, almost 57, year old woman, I can tell you exactly what happened to cement my place on team no more fucks to give - my husband died from cancer. In August he will have been gone for 3 years, and I’m hard pressed to give much , if any, weight to what others think of me. If I had control over anything other than my own thoughts, feelings and actions, I would have saved him, and bought a few lottery tickets too because, you know, bills, but I am not that powerful. Change is hard and scary, so it makes sense that we’re more willing to do it, no fucks given, when faced with a reality far more difficult and frightening. I love your writing. Thanks for asking the question, even if it was rhetorical.
One of my favourite essays of yours, Caroline. I am so happy for you that you have the feeling now, at 40. I didn't. But when I turned 50 this voice in my head said to me " F**k it you, are 50." And suddenly I was released from caring so much, from worrying about what my place was, or if I fit in and to just take my place, own and it and live in it. The Nine of Swords is perhaps the wisest card because it asks us to examine the story we have been telling ourselves. Is it an assumption or is it true? We have choices and giving no f**ks means we can choose our own stories. "This week’s card wishes to remind us that in many cases, the opposite of anxiety isn’t calm — it’s awareness." YES.
This hits so hard! I’ve been accidentally letting loose my “all out of fs”/30 y o man since I turned 40… but now I’m going to cultivate it. Bring some awareness to it, as the Nine of Swords would have it.
I also recognize that morning booting up anxiety. As far as the voicemail goes, after I came back from maternity leave at, um, our mutual workplace whose higher ups are hopefully not reading this, but oh well, I had forgotten my landline voicemail passcode and so I just … never … listened to my voicemail again? The earth continued turning, so there’s some kind of happy lesson there, maybe.
I'm turning 50 this year, and am thinking a lot about how I want to live this second half (or less than half) of my life. I'm starting to wonder if our time as a human on earth goes like this: start out as a hopeful baby who gives no f***s, learn as a child and adult that to "do well" we SHOULD give many f***s, then through life experiences, re-learn that to be truly happy and content, it's best to give zero f***s!
Yes, Amelia! It does often seem like the journey (to our authentic selves, at least) takes us right back to where we started. We spend so much time learning…and just as much unlearning…until we’re left holding zero f***s! But it sure does feel lighter this way!
I love your sense of humor. Twisting up lyrics is one of my favorite things to do. Like the Guns N' Roses hit "Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Kevin's Door."
It would be an interesting exercise to chart one's confidence over the decades which would be the inverse of one's inventory of f*cks. To continue the inventory metaphor, I think the accounting is probably FIFO (First In First Out). Use an accounting acronym, lose a reader!
But what I also want to know is how did you get the Air Supply video to play at the right moment? Is that because it's Vevo?
Hahaha, "Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Kevin's Door" made me laugh out loud, not least of all because I used to have a neighbor named Kevin.
Playing a video at the exact moment you'd like is an easy trick (at least on YouTube, not sure if it works the same everywhere). Cue the video up to the place where you'd like it to start, then right click. It will give you a list of options, including "copy video URL" and "copy video URL at current time." Choose that one. :)
"Maybe it’s coming to grips with the part where our time actually is limited" - I think you've hit the nail on the head.
For me, it happened after my first son was born. I suddenly had this great sense of my own mortality when I looked into his brand new face, and it gave me the strength to stop not giving f's, exactly, but to stop trying to people please and stop giving free passes to people that didn't deserve my time (but that I'd allowed access for fear of offending anyone). It's very refreshing. As time has gone on I've cut out a lot of toxic relationships and have also started to think "in 200 years no-one will remember me anyway so why not do the thing that makes me happy?"
Oh Caroline, how are your topics always so relevant! I have been feeling much more anxious this week than normal - I'm doing a work trip + personal vacation combo and have to say they both kind of ruin each other. Work ruins relaxing, and relaxing puts a lot of pressure on work! The worst part is that my awareness lets me know how much more fun I'd be having if I wasn't so anxious - not a fun reminder mid spiral! After journaling, this is what I came up with:
I'm going to start keeping track of all the things I worried about that didn't come true. So many things are terrible in my mind and turn out to be FINE!
I love your line "And the thing about stories is that just as you can weave them, you can edit them, too." I will be reminding myself of this!
Thank you for your words, even just knowing other people suffer from anxiety makes it easier! Off to NYC tomorrow so I'm hoping things will look up :)
Brilliantly said Caroline! Oh how we should all be able to not give a fxxk whenever we feel the need to, wherever we are in life and not be programmed to think it’s wrong. For me it’s like surrendering but it’s often so hard to do but I also think divine intervention has a major part to play when ‘big I don’t give a fxxks’ occur. We had talked about moving to Spain for a decade and every single fxxk you can imagine conveniently cropped up and got in the way. Until one key argument happened and I said if we don’t go now and sod the fxxks that say we shouldn’t go, we never will. So we did. I was 58. Sold up lock stock and barrel and put a pin in a map and landed here in southern Spain. This week I was thinking about whether we really do decide our life paths and how jumping in head first to the complete unknown had brought us such joy. I was suddenly ’shown’ out of the blue on a pod, only an hour later, how key aspects of your natal chart can show up as physical locations on your life path on an astrological world map. When I checked mine, where we live is exactly on my mid heaven line!! There I was thinking we’d just thrown caution to the wind and got here because we didn’t give a fxxk one day but maybe it was really meant to be all along!
Thanks for the reminder Caroline. This one is very relatable …. wait, they all are. As a woman turning 60, I can say that I’m eager to join the No Fucks Club. My generation was taught to pick up all the No Fucks and sort them out. I’ve been practicing for years for the Club and am grateful for the reminder. Thanks for sharing in such a relatable way.
To quote the delightfully cheeky Sabrina Carpenter "My give a fuckssssss are on vacationnnnnn” (and now I will happily be singing Espresso for the rest of the day…again.)
I loved turning thirty and as I start the slide (or perhaps climb is more appropriate?) towards 40 I will be channeling this energy.
I love this so much Caroline. I am a 30 year old woman — and I deeply concur that there’s nothing quite like coming out on the other side of your Saturn return (what we all go through around age 28-30) with faaaar less f*cks to give 🥰❤️🔥😆
As a 56, almost 57, year old woman, I can tell you exactly what happened to cement my place on team no more fucks to give - my husband died from cancer. In August he will have been gone for 3 years, and I’m hard pressed to give much , if any, weight to what others think of me. If I had control over anything other than my own thoughts, feelings and actions, I would have saved him, and bought a few lottery tickets too because, you know, bills, but I am not that powerful. Change is hard and scary, so it makes sense that we’re more willing to do it, no fucks given, when faced with a reality far more difficult and frightening. I love your writing. Thanks for asking the question, even if it was rhetorical.
One of my favourite essays of yours, Caroline. I am so happy for you that you have the feeling now, at 40. I didn't. But when I turned 50 this voice in my head said to me " F**k it you, are 50." And suddenly I was released from caring so much, from worrying about what my place was, or if I fit in and to just take my place, own and it and live in it. The Nine of Swords is perhaps the wisest card because it asks us to examine the story we have been telling ourselves. Is it an assumption or is it true? We have choices and giving no f**ks means we can choose our own stories. "This week’s card wishes to remind us that in many cases, the opposite of anxiety isn’t calm — it’s awareness." YES.
Always thinking of that Joan rivers quote- “listen. I wish I could tell you it gets better. But it doesn’t get better. You get better.”
Ohh I’d forgotten this quote, so glad you reminded me. Isn’t that everything.
This hits so hard! I’ve been accidentally letting loose my “all out of fs”/30 y o man since I turned 40… but now I’m going to cultivate it. Bring some awareness to it, as the Nine of Swords would have it.
I also recognize that morning booting up anxiety. As far as the voicemail goes, after I came back from maternity leave at, um, our mutual workplace whose higher ups are hopefully not reading this, but oh well, I had forgotten my landline voicemail passcode and so I just … never … listened to my voicemail again? The earth continued turning, so there’s some kind of happy lesson there, maybe.
I'm turning 50 this year, and am thinking a lot about how I want to live this second half (or less than half) of my life. I'm starting to wonder if our time as a human on earth goes like this: start out as a hopeful baby who gives no f***s, learn as a child and adult that to "do well" we SHOULD give many f***s, then through life experiences, re-learn that to be truly happy and content, it's best to give zero f***s!
Yes, Amelia! It does often seem like the journey (to our authentic selves, at least) takes us right back to where we started. We spend so much time learning…and just as much unlearning…until we’re left holding zero f***s! But it sure does feel lighter this way!
tricenarian: I'd not encountered this word. I like it!
Yes, of course, to all of this. And I adore that photo of Paris.
And, indeed, to be a forty-year-old woman!! The Very Best. ❤️
Hi Caroline,
I love your sense of humor. Twisting up lyrics is one of my favorite things to do. Like the Guns N' Roses hit "Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Kevin's Door."
It would be an interesting exercise to chart one's confidence over the decades which would be the inverse of one's inventory of f*cks. To continue the inventory metaphor, I think the accounting is probably FIFO (First In First Out). Use an accounting acronym, lose a reader!
But what I also want to know is how did you get the Air Supply video to play at the right moment? Is that because it's Vevo?
But how
Hahaha, "Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Kevin's Door" made me laugh out loud, not least of all because I used to have a neighbor named Kevin.
Playing a video at the exact moment you'd like is an easy trick (at least on YouTube, not sure if it works the same everywhere). Cue the video up to the place where you'd like it to start, then right click. It will give you a list of options, including "copy video URL" and "copy video URL at current time." Choose that one. :)
Thanks for the tip! Widens my YouTube choices tremendously.
"Maybe it’s coming to grips with the part where our time actually is limited" - I think you've hit the nail on the head.
For me, it happened after my first son was born. I suddenly had this great sense of my own mortality when I looked into his brand new face, and it gave me the strength to stop not giving f's, exactly, but to stop trying to people please and stop giving free passes to people that didn't deserve my time (but that I'd allowed access for fear of offending anyone). It's very refreshing. As time has gone on I've cut out a lot of toxic relationships and have also started to think "in 200 years no-one will remember me anyway so why not do the thing that makes me happy?"
It's a good way to live, I like it here.
Oh Caroline, how are your topics always so relevant! I have been feeling much more anxious this week than normal - I'm doing a work trip + personal vacation combo and have to say they both kind of ruin each other. Work ruins relaxing, and relaxing puts a lot of pressure on work! The worst part is that my awareness lets me know how much more fun I'd be having if I wasn't so anxious - not a fun reminder mid spiral! After journaling, this is what I came up with:
I'm going to start keeping track of all the things I worried about that didn't come true. So many things are terrible in my mind and turn out to be FINE!
I love your line "And the thing about stories is that just as you can weave them, you can edit them, too." I will be reminding myself of this!
Thank you for your words, even just knowing other people suffer from anxiety makes it easier! Off to NYC tomorrow so I'm hoping things will look up :)
Brilliantly said Caroline! Oh how we should all be able to not give a fxxk whenever we feel the need to, wherever we are in life and not be programmed to think it’s wrong. For me it’s like surrendering but it’s often so hard to do but I also think divine intervention has a major part to play when ‘big I don’t give a fxxks’ occur. We had talked about moving to Spain for a decade and every single fxxk you can imagine conveniently cropped up and got in the way. Until one key argument happened and I said if we don’t go now and sod the fxxks that say we shouldn’t go, we never will. So we did. I was 58. Sold up lock stock and barrel and put a pin in a map and landed here in southern Spain. This week I was thinking about whether we really do decide our life paths and how jumping in head first to the complete unknown had brought us such joy. I was suddenly ’shown’ out of the blue on a pod, only an hour later, how key aspects of your natal chart can show up as physical locations on your life path on an astrological world map. When I checked mine, where we live is exactly on my mid heaven line!! There I was thinking we’d just thrown caution to the wind and got here because we didn’t give a fxxk one day but maybe it was really meant to be all along!
Going to be singing those altered Air Supply lyrics for the next two weeks (at least)!! ☺️
Gosh, the reading was especially helpful to me this week. Thank you 💛
Glad to hear it! (Hopefully the Air Supply doesn’t get too grating. 😬) Thank you, Meg.
Thanks for the reminder Caroline. This one is very relatable …. wait, they all are. As a woman turning 60, I can say that I’m eager to join the No Fucks Club. My generation was taught to pick up all the No Fucks and sort them out. I’ve been practicing for years for the Club and am grateful for the reminder. Thanks for sharing in such a relatable way.
To quote the delightfully cheeky Sabrina Carpenter "My give a fuckssssss are on vacationnnnnn” (and now I will happily be singing Espresso for the rest of the day…again.)
I loved turning thirty and as I start the slide (or perhaps climb is more appropriate?) towards 40 I will be channeling this energy.
Beautiful, as always, Caroline. XX, Kate
Thank you, Kate. xx
I love this so much Caroline. I am a 30 year old woman — and I deeply concur that there’s nothing quite like coming out on the other side of your Saturn return (what we all go through around age 28-30) with faaaar less f*cks to give 🥰❤️🔥😆
There’s so much more room for fun with those f*cks out of the way. 😬☺️